Fall Out Boy Want Babyface To Produce Their Next Album

With sales of their breakthrough album, From Under the Cork Tree, now past the 1 million mark, Fall Out Boy have begun making serious headway on their next album, discussing demos and naming a producer who’s likely to leave fans scratching their heads.

“The guy we really want and we’re trying to lock it down with is very bizarre for Fall Out Boy,” bassist Pete Wentz said. “It’s Babyface. He said he wants to do it, but nothing’s confirmed yet. I swear to God, he’s going to do at least six songs with us.”

A spokesperson for the producer could not be reached for comment at press time.

Wentz said he and the rest of the band have been kicking around the idea of working with Babyface for quite some time now, but it wasn’t until a recent, um, face-to-’Face meeting that they were able to get the wheels in motion. What piqued their interest wasn’t Babyface’s string of A-list collaborations — he worked with basically every R&B name of note in the mid- to late ’90s, including Toni Braxton, TLC and Boyz II Men — it was one of the producer/songwriter’s lesser-known projects.

“He did the soundtrack to [the 2001 film version of] ’Josie and the Pussycats,’ and it’s amazing. So we’re going to have him do it, and have someone who’s really into heavy music engineer it,” Wentz laughed. “We haven’t confirmed him but we’re looking to tap him for the job and we will be demoing a couple of songs with him for sure.”

While they await word from Babyface, Fall Out Boy will keep busy with a variety of projects: Wentz is behind the upcoming “bizarro-Friendster” site FriendsOrEnemies.com, and frontman Patrick Stump will be producing the new album from Chicago’s the Hush Sound.

“We actually just wrote another song about all this beef sh–. It makes fun of us and the whole thing in general. The last line before the chorus is ’All the dot-coms refresh for a journal update,’ ” Wentz said, referring to his penchant for starting feuds via his online journals. “And we’re going to start this gang where we just go and start beef with people. Because rock bands are scared of it.”